Sunday, July 03, 2011

Obama's May 19 speech and the Arab Peace Initiative (API)

In a two-part article that appeared in The Great Neck News, Williston Times and New Hyde Park Courier, Liz Berney, who was a Republican candidate for Congress in New York in 2010, shows that President Obama's May 19 speech, in which he called for Israel to retreat to the 1949 armistice lines, shows that Obama continues to try to impose the 'Arab Peace Initiative' (also known as the Saudi Plan) on Israel. Part 1 of the article is here and Part 2 is here. Here's an excerpt.

Obama’s May 19, 2011 speech followed the same API game plan. The speech was even worse than many people realize. For instance, Obama did much more than simply imply that unsecure pre-1967 lines should be the framework for negotiating future borders. Obama said that the “United States” believes that the “result” of negotiations should be the (indefensible) 1967 borders with some swaps. In other words, Obama declared that such borders are U.S. policy – an extreme anti-Israel position.

“Pre-1967 borders” refers to the 1949 Armistice lines, where the war stopped after six Arab countries invaded Israel and seized existing Jewish homes and synagogues and historic Jewish areas, including land promised to Israel by the Balfour Declaration and San Remo conference. Obama’s position reverses all prior U.S. policy. Former President Bush’s 2004 letter to former Israeli prime minister Sharon declared: “[I]t is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.” President Bush’s letter also noted that such a retreat was not feasible due to the presence of “major Israeli population centers” beyond the 1949 lines.

Alarmingly, Obama’s May 19 speech also characterized Israel’s territorial retreat and the establishment of a Palestinian State as a first step, which would not be enough: issues of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem would still be outstanding and then require resolution. Obama’s statement gave credibility to Palestinian claims to Jerusalem and a so-called Palestinian “right of return” to overrun all of Israel. Obama’s proposed phased steps are also reminiscent of the API and Yasser Arafat’s “plan of phases” to destroy Israel.

(Obama’s Orwellian phrasing of a phases plan was: “Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I’m aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair.”)

It would of course be suicidal for Israel to “move forward now” on giving up more territory, retreating to indefensible borders and permitting a terrorist Palestinian state, and to then have to contend with millions of Palestinians also demanding to move to homes in Israel that they never lived in, thereby destroying Israel. Obama’s apparent support for such phased concessions and a Palestinian “right of return” reverses prior U.S. policy.

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In truth, the Palestinian Authority is seeking a state from the United Nations in order to avoid making peace with Israel. Palestinians admit that U.N. recognition will be a springboard for "lawfare" (war through abusive lawsuits) and "phases plan" actions against Israel. In a May 16, 2011 New York Times Op Ed, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas wrote that U.N. recognition would enable Palestinians to pursue "human rights" claims against Israel in numerous international legal courts, and to continue to pursue "a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on Resolution 194."

The latter item refers to a Palestinian "right of return" to all of Israel, pursuant to the Palestinian one-sided misinterpretation of U.N. Resolution 194, which, it so happens, every Arab country voted against. (An honest implementation of Resolution 194 would allow Jews to return to the homes Jews had to flee from in East Jerusalem and throughout the Middle East.)

By contrast to UN action, a negotiated peace (which the Palestinians have studiously avoided) would require the Palestinians to finally recognize the Jewish State.

Obama's statements also ignored the long history of broken Palestinian promises. In five written Palestinian-Israeli agreements, commencing with Oslo I in 1993, Israel made enormous territorial concessions, in exchange for promises that the Palestinian Authority would end violence and incitement against Israel, and turn over terrorists and illegal weapons.

Israel kept its end of the bargain, conveying half the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, while the Palestinian Authority violated every one of its obligations. The Palestinian Authority repaid Israeli generosity by continually inciting terror and deadly intifadas against Israel, which killed and injured thousands of Israeli civilians.

Obama's pledge in his May 19 speech of $1 billion of loans forgiveness plus $1 billion of loan guarantees to the new Egyptian government was another outrage. In its short existence, the new Egyptian regime has already been punctuated by: wholesale murders of Christian Copts; increased arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza (for use against Israel); the opening of the Egypt-Gaza border; obvious involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood; the brokering of the Hamas-Fatah pact; potential Egyptian president Muhammed el-Baradei's April 4, 2011 threat to declare war on Israel, and more. Shouldn't American promises of assistance at the very least be conditioned upon better behavior?

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com